Congratulations to Len Hawkins, who has been named the first-ever recipient of The Spectator’s Michael Heath Award for Cartooning. Already an established gag cartoonist, Len has won a year’s contract with the magazine, an original drawing by Heath, a bottle of gin, and a hand-made pair of shoes from John Lobb, which sponsored the competition.

George Grosz, the German satirical artist who has inspired so many of today’s cartoonists, is the subject of a new exhibition at the Richard Nagy gallery in London – the first retrospective of Grosz’s work to be held in the UK for almost 20 years. Read more about the show here.

Michael Maslin, a regular cartoonist for The New Yorker, asks his peers to reveal some of their most autobiographical gags and the inspiration behind them. Read the responses here.

We are sorry to note that James Sillavan (JAS) has died at the age of 63. His cartoons appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, notably The Guardian, The Observer, The Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Tablet and The Economist. The Guardian has a detailed obituary here.

And finally – looking for something special for the history buff in your life? PCOer Adrian Teal, himself something of an expert on the 18th Century, is one of the brains behind this ‘replica cundum’, which is being auctioned on behalf of Cancer Research UK. Go on – you know you want to.

Procartoonists.org member Royston Robertson has put together a cartoon advent calendar again this year, with a different gag posted to his blog each day in the run-up to Christmas. Take a look at Royston’s festive goodies here. Elsewhere, The Telegraph’s Matt Pritchett provides a topical – but far less appealing – advent calendar of his own.

Two political cartoon exhibitions open in London next week, at the Chris Beetles Gallery and the Political Cartoon Gallery.

PeterBrookes: The Best of Times, above, is at the Chris Beetles Gallery from Monday (October 12) until October 31. More than 100 of Brookes’s most recent cartoons from The Times will be on display. Signed copies of the book accompanying the show are available from the gallery.

Drawings by Peter Brookes also feature in Cameron in Caricature, an exhibition of cartoons on the Tory leader David Cameron is at the Political Cartoon Gallery from next Tuesday (October 13) until December 24.

Cameron’s infamous Twitter faux pas, as seen by Morten Morland

The exhibition of 60 original cartoons charts the fortunes of Cameron since he became leader in December 2005. It will feature cartoons by political cartoonists such as Martin Rowson, Steve Bell, Morten Morland, Dave Brown, Peter Schrank, Ingram Pinn and Andy Davey.

The Political Cartoon Gallery, 32 Store Street, is open Mon-Fri 9.30am–5.30pm and Sat 11.30am–5.30pm.

PCOer Morten Morland won the Political Cartoon Society‘s cartoonist of the year yesterday. Bloghorn is publishing one of Morten’s Post-it note caricatures of Gordon Brown above.

Bloghorn’s alter ego, and the current chair leg of the PCO, Andy Davey said:

It’s great that Morten has won this. He’s one of the best cartoonists working in the UK. The judges commended his immediately recognisable style and use of unusual perspective – I’d second that. And he does it all with only one real outing in the UK media per week – watch Mondays in The Times newspaper.

Steve Bell, of The Guardian, won best single image of the Year, for something like this and Peter Shrank of The Independent on Sunday was runner-up.

An Independent Line – an exhibition of cartoons from The Independent newspaper, by Dave Brown, Peter Schrank and Tim Sanders, is at the Political Cartoon Gallery in London from June 18 until October 18.

The exhibition promises to be a treat for lovers of satire, as it features a wealth of work from the Indie’s three political cartoonists. Drawing on the best of more than 12 years of material, it features cartoons from the John Major years to the present day.

The show will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated hardback book with a foreword by comedian Mark Steel.

The Political Cartoon Gallery is at 32 Store Street, London WC1E 7BS, and is open Monday to Friday 9.30am – 5.30pm and on Saturdays between 11.30am – 5.30pm.

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Disclaimer: Any opinion expressed here is that of the named individual and not that of the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation unless explicitly stated. Artwork attributed to a named author or publication on this diary should be noted by anyone linking to us from any other site. Thank you. If you wish to reproduce an image please contact the artist from here.